


One Year to the Next

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [53]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: Prompt: Could we have a heart breaking fic of Jamie reminiscing at Hogmany about his beautiful Claire and what he loved about her to Ian during the 20 year seperation? Thank you!





	One Year to the Next

The big house was full to the brim. Fergus and Marsali had brought Germain and the girls over and Bree, Roger and Jemmy had come over from their cabin to spend the night—Roger would be acting as First Foot again this year. Mrs. Bug was scolding the little ones out of the kitchen and away from the food. Jamie stood by the door to Claire’s surgery watching the scene, a smile on his face. She came to stand beside him, worming her way under his arm. 

He bent and kissed her head as they watched their brood. Jemmy chased Germain round and round Jamie’s chair where the girls had climbed up and sat clutching each other, giggling as they watched the boys. Bree and Marsali each had one eye on the children as they stood chatting with their husbands. Roger inched further over so he stood as a barrier between the little ones and the hearth. 

Claire’s hand came up to squeeze Jamie’s. “Where’s Ian?”

Jamie scanned the room but didn’t see his nephew anywhere. 

“I’ll find him.” 

Checking his study and the kitchen first, Jamie soon found a trail of footprints through the snow leading out to the barn. 

Ian was brushing the horses, answering them when they chittered at him. He looked up when Jamie came in and closed the door but Ian’s hands continued the rhythmic strokes with the brush, soothing both himself and the horse. 

“Yer auntie missed ye,” Jamie remarked. “Dinna blame ye for seekin’ a quieter spot for a while, though. The bairns’ll calm when the feast’s been had. Warm food in their bellies and they’ll be droppin’ off like flies to their beds.” 

Ian nodded. Jamie had noted it many times since his nephew’s return, but Ian’s newfound penchant for silence and solitude disquieted him. He couldn’t help remembering how enthusiastic and boisterous the lad had been when they first arrived in the colonies. Even with all he’d suffered during his kidnapping, he’d never seemed so… hollow. He hadn’t seen  _ Ian _ so hollow, but he did recognize that emptiness.

“Ye ken the stories of how I lived in those years before ye were born, aye?” Jamie said. 

Ian’s mouth quirked up in a half smile. “Aye. The Dunbonnet, livin’ in the cave. Stuff of legend to hear Jamie and Michael talkin’ of it.”

“Might’ve sounded like an adventure to the lads, young as they were… but how I spent my time there was far from it. Cramped, damp, chilled. Little to do durin’ the day but sleep or read the few books I kept on hand. Might manage a bit of hunting come nightfall. Could be too much time alone wi’ my thoughts… my regrets… my memories…”

“Ye thought of Auntie Claire,” Ian guessed. 

“And the bairn she carried. Both of them lost to me forever… or so I believed then. Somewhere between haunted and comforted by the thought of them.”

“I cannae help seein’ her when I look at the weans runnin’ round in there,” Ian said quietly. “She’d barely be sittin’ up on her own by now did she live.”

“Losin’ what ye lost… It’s no easy—I ken that. Before I ever lost Claire at Culloden, we lost a bairn at birth… Then losin’ Claire and another bairn little more than a year later… But what I found helped most was findin’ somethin’ else to live for—someone else to care for,” Jamie commiserated. 

Ian frowned at him, surprised. “Are ye talkin’ bout Auntie Laoghaire?”

Jamie choked on the thought, turning it to a laugh and found that Ian was chuckling too. 

“I was talkin’ ‘bout  _ you _ . And yer brother and sisters, and yer parents, and the rest of the folk at Lallybroch… When I went to Ardsmuir it was my men… And no Laoghaire so much as her lassies when I returned to Lallybroch again. It’s no so strong or filling as it’s been since yer Auntie Claire came back… but it was something.”

“Emily willna come back to me,” Ian said, resigned. He didn’t need to add that there was no hope of his daughter coming back either. 

“No,” Jamie conceded. “But there may be someone in yer future who will fill some of that emptiness and maybe it’ll be more than ye can think now. And seein’ the bairns inside may hurt ye now, but it willna always do so.”

“Is that all that helps? Thinkin’ it will someday get better?” Ian asked setting the brushes aside. 

“Ye can try talkin’ about it. That wasna an option in my case… All I could do was keep her in my heart, her and the bairn. I prayed for them and thought of what they might be about in their time… what they might be about had they been able to stay and we were together. I couldna bear the thought of forgettin’ a single thing about her—not her smile, nor her laugh…”

“Emily kent how to make me laugh like no other,” Ian reminisced. “Thought I did the same for her but… I ken what we had… it wasna quite like what ye have wi’ Auntie Claire…”

Jamie shook his head. “It willna do for ye to be comparing one grief to another. It willna stop ye feelin’ it to try and belittle whatever it is ye had wi’ the lass. I only seek to give ye hope that the pain  _ will _ pass, if no’ completely then it will at least become a part of ye in an easier way to live with. And I want ye to know ye needna to  _ hide _ yer grief. We’ll share it with ye if that will help.” 

“Thank ye, Uncle Jamie.”

“Whatever ye’re needin, lad, ye need only ask,” Jamie responded, nodding and giving Ian a reassuring pat on the back. 

“I’ll be along soon. I just need to clean up here and then I’ll be ready for some supper.”

“I’ll set some aside for ye if it looks like the bairns’ll finish it off on ye before ye reach the table,” Jamie promised. 

He closed the barn door behind him and turned back to the house. Halfway there he paused in the snow, spotting Claire through the window helping Mrs. Bug with the food. The light from kitchen hearth glowed in a warm halo behind her and she smiled broadly, laughing at something Mrs. Bug had said. 

It was a vision straight from the imaginings years ago in a cave on a night just as cold, a night that promised another year without her there to warm him.

But this time, Jamie knew how close that warmth was. He took one step and then another and another until he reached the house and pushed open the door, the hot air of the kitchen rushing past him on its way out, whisking the chill from his nose and cheeks along with it. 

And there was Claire, her eyebrows rising in a question as she crossed to help him off with his coat. 

“He’ll be along shortly,” Jamie told her, slipping his arm around her waist and leading her back through to the noisy parlor where the children and grandchildren were gathered. 


End file.
